1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming system, apparatus, method and control program in which, for example, a plurality of image forming apparatuses such as printers, copiers, facsimile apparatuses, and multifunction products are connected to a host computer via a network, an image forming apparatus, and a control program.
2. Description of the Background Art
In recent years, computer networks have proliferated and in many offices LANs which connect a plurality of information devices, such as computers and printers, together have been built. With the proliferation of peripheral devices such as computers, printers, scanners, and digital cameras, networks such as LANs also proliferate. By sharing a printer, a modem, and an image reading apparatus on a network, an environment in which various apparatuses on the network can be used is implemented.
Conventionally, in the background art, a printing system has been widely used in which an instruction is transmitted to a printing apparatus such as a printer from a host device such as a computer to cause the printing apparatus to print text or graphics or to modify the print format or make settings on the printing apparatus itself.
For example, background art Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-096850 suggests a case where a host device transmits an instruction, including print data and a power-off command, to a printing apparatus. The host device receives information on a state of the printing apparatus to be transmitted from the printing apparatus and, in a case where the printing apparatus receives an instruction transmitted from the host device and the received instruction includes a power-off command, the printing apparatus: performs a stop process, such as a print head maintenance process; transmits state information to the host device; and performs a power supply stop process. As another example Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-216604 suggests a printing apparatus capable of temporarily storing print data in a nonvolatile storage apparatus and having a print controlling unit that holds print data received from a host and information on the print data even after the power is turned off.
In yet another background art example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-319673 suggests including printers and a host device connected to each other, in which in a case where there are a plurality of printers in the same environment, further including a printer among the plurality of printers present in the same environment which does not have a storage medium, is provided an area of a storage medium of a registered printer having a mass storage medium that enables the printer which does not have a storage medium to perform printing using the mass storage medium and, upon power on, by sharing the mass storage medium with the registered printer, memory corruption or the like is dealt with.
A problem with the background art discussed above is that, in an image forming apparatus which does not have a mass storage medium, there is a possibility that jobs being saved may be left for a long period of time and thus, the capacity of a storage medium maybe cluttered. Moreover, in such background art image forming apparatus provided with a facsimile or the like, it is often the case that the power to the apparatus is left turned on for 24 hours. Therefore, in such an image forming apparatus which does not have a security function, there is a possibility that jobs saved in a memory (e.g., Hard disk drive (HDD) or the like) in the image forming apparatus may be obtained by being accessed from outside and security of such jobs/information could be compromised.